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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
(18) DR. A. M. S. BELL asked the following question:—
Fixed pitch licences are only issued on the recommendations of the Social Welfare Department and most persons who are granted licences in this category are compassionate cases involving some degree of urgency. Can the Director of Social Welfare please describe the process by which these licences are granted? Can steps be taken to improve and speed up this process?
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI, CHAIRMAN OF THE HAWKERS SELECT Committee, replied as follows:-
This question concerns procedure for the issue of fixed pitch licences.
Because the site available for Fixed Pitch licences are so limited this Council, for many years, has usually only granted them on the recommendation of the Director of Social Welfare. Many applicants for these licences apply in person to the District Offices of the Social Welfare Department while others are referred there by voluntary agencies, Urban Councillors and other interested parties. A case worker then investigates the social, financial and family circumstances of the applicant through visits to the home and interviews held in the office. If the case worker had no other cases to deal with at the same time and if the applicant and his family and neighbours were always at home when visited, it would be possible to reach a decision within a few days. As it is, the case workers each have a large case-load, and since applicants are very often found to be out and even sometimes fail to keep appointments, it may take as much as a month to complete the investigation. Applicants whom the Director of Social Welfare decides to recommend are then referred to the Urban Services Department.
The Urban Services Department refers each applicant for a site to the Hawker Licensing Office in Hong Kong or Kowloon as appropriate and asks him to choose one from a list of approved and available sites. A clerk is employed full-time on the job of keeping this list up-to-date, allocating sites and should generally assist applicants. This clerk works in the Hong Kong Office on Tuesdays and Fridays, and in the Kowloon Office on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The applicant may not like any of the available sites and, if so, he is allowed to suggest other sites which he finds for himself with the proviso that the new site must be acceptable to the Council after consulting, inter alia, the Police and Fire Services Departments. Alternatively, an applicant may choose to be placed on a waiting list so that he can try again when new sites become available.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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the Council after consulting, inter alia, the Police and Fire Services Departments. Alternatively, an applicant may choose to be placed on a waiting list so that he can try again when new sites become available.
It does, of course, sometimes happen that several applicants choose the same site from the list and the Social Welfare Department has recently made available to the Urban Council an elaborate points system on which priorities can be decided. This will be brought into use shortly. The present system is to ballot for sites for which there are more than one applicant and this will be discontinued once the points system is in operation.
Another complication is that from time to time existing fixed pitch licensees who may have been originally recommended by the Director of Social Welfare, have to be moved from sites previously allocated to them because of demolition work or reconstruction of some kind. These licensees also have to be taken into account when vacant sites are allocated and this may sometimes make it appear that new and urgent cases are not being given due attention. There would, however, be little point in favouring a new case if it meant putting an old one back into a state of want.
Originally, when the number of cases were not so much, good sites becoming vacant were offered direct to the Social Welfare Department for individual allocation, but later this arrangement was found to be impractical and the Urban Services Department took the work back at the request of the Director of Social Welfare.
I am informed, however, that the Director of Social Welfare is examining his present procedure to see whether the supervisor or officer in charge of a District Office can save a few days by sending recommendations direct to the Urban Services Department instead of, as at present, returning the names of applicants to a case worker to embody in the periodical consolidated list which is at present produced at frequent intervals.
Finally the Hawkers Select Committee will be happy to have the present procedure reviewed in toto and will welcome any suggestion from Members on this.
DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, may I thank Mr. BERNACCHI for his answer. I was tempted, while he was giving it, in fact I did write down "The king asked the queen, and the queen asked the dairy maid and so on.
It goes on, everybody asked everybody else about
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
(18) DR. A. M. S. BELL asked the following question:—
Fixed pitch licences are only issued on the recommendations of the Social Welfare Department and most persons who are granted licences in this category are compassionate cases involving some degree of urgency. Can the Director of Social Welfare please describe the process by which these licences are granted? Can steps be taken to improve and speed up this process?
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI, CHAIRMAN OF THE HAWKERS SELECT Com- MITTEE, replied as follows:-
This question concerns procedure for the issue of fixed pitch
licences.
Because the site available for Fixed Pitch licences are so limited this Council, for many years, has usually only granted them on the recommendation of the Director of Social Welfare. Many applicants for these licences apply in person to the District Offices of the Social Welfare Department while others are referred there by voluntary agencies, Urban Councillors and other interested parties. A case worker then investigates the social, financial and family circumstances of the applicant through visits to the home and interviews held in the office. If the case worker had no other cases to deal with at the same time and if the applicant and his family and neighbours were always at home when visited, it would be possible to reach a decision within a few days. As it is, the case workers each have a large case-load, and since applicants are very often found to be out and even sometimes fail to keep appointments, it may take as much as a month to com- plete the investigation. Applicants whom the Director of Social Welfare decides to recommend are then referred to the Urban Services Department.
The Urban Services Department refers each applicant for a site to the Hawker Licensing Office in Hong Kong or Kowloon as appropriate and asks him to choose one from a list of approved and available sites. A clerk is em- ployed full-time on the job of keeping this list up-to-date, allocating sites and should generally assist applicants. This clerk works in the Hong Kong Office on Tuesdays and Fridays, and in the Kowloon Office on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The applicant may not like any of the available sites and, if so, he is allowed to suggest other sites which he finds for himself with the proviso that the new site must be acceptable to
answer.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
93
the Council after consulting, inter alia, the Police and Fire Services Departments. Alternatively, an applicant may choose to be placed on a waiting list so that he can try again when new sites become available.
It does, of course, sometimes happen that several applicants choose the same site from the list and the Social Welfare Department has recently made available to the Urban Council an elaborate points system on which priorities can be decided. This will be brought into use shortly. The present system is to ballot for sites for which there are more than one applicant and this will be discontinued once the points system is in operation.
Another complication is that from time to time existing fixed pitch licensees who may have been originally recommend- ed by the Director of Social Welfare, have to be moved from sites previously allocated to them because of demoli- tion work or reconstruction of some kind. These licensees also have to be taken into account when vacant sites are allocated and this may sometimes make it appear that new and urgent cases are not being given due attention. There would, however, be little point in favouring a new case if it meant putting an old one back into a state of want.
Originally, when the number of cases were not so much, good sites becoming vacant were offered direct to the Social Welfare Department for individual allocation, but later this arrangement was found to be impractical and the Urban Services Department took the work back at the request of the Director of Social Welfare.
I am informed, however, that the Director of Social Welfare is examining his present procedure to see whether the supervisor or officer in charge of a District Office can save a few days by sending recommendations direct to the Urban Services Department instead of, as at present, returning the names of applicants to a case worker to embody in the periodical consolidated list which is at present produced at frequent intervals.
Finally the Hawkers Select Committee will be happy to have the present procedure reviewed in toto and will welcome any suggestion from Members on this.
DR. BELL:Mr. Chairman, may I thank Mr. BERNACCHI for his I was tempted, while he was giving it, in fact I did write down "The king asked the queen, and the queen asked the dairy maid and so on.
It goes on, everybody asked everybody else about
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Page 56 of 2.
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